Ebola fears: Blame Hollywood?

Losing sleep over Ebola? Blame “The Walking Dead.”

Scholars say the outpouring of public angst about the virus is partly rooted in Hollywood, where film studios have for years cranked out TV shows and movies such as “Outbreak” and “Contagion” that show the world ravaged by an unstoppable virus.

{mosads}The silver screen portrayals have added to the challenges for public health officials, as they try to maintain public calm about a virus that is killing an estimated 7 out of every 10 people it infects in West Africa.

“They’re fictional. They’re meant to entertain,” said Nancy Tomes, a historian who has studied the causes of  “germ panics.”

“They have no obligation to virology. They’re for entertainment. But they do shape the ideas that people have available to make sense of something like this.”

Polls have registered growing public alarm about the spread of Ebola, with angst about the virus manifesting in brisk sales of hazmat suits and hand sanitizer, and reports of parents pulling their children from school.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden last week acknowledged that the public’s perception of Ebola has been shaped by popular entertainment.

Frieden might have been referring to 1995’s “Outbreak,” in which a monkey carrying a virus similar to Ebola is brought to a pet store in California, and the disease quickly spreads.

In the movie, the virus was transmitted by air, unlike Ebola, which can only be contracted through contact with the bodily fluids of someone who is showing symptoms of the disease.

Even when Ebola or a similar virus isn’t mentioned specifically, filmmakers have long drawn on the idea of a viral pandemic. In movies like “I Am Legend” and TV shows like “The Walking Dead” and “The Last Ship,” it’s not uncommon for a single infection to turn into an apocalypse by the end of the first act.

Still, popular portrayals aren’t the only forces that can influence the way Americans are reacting to Ebola.

Paul Roepe, co-director of Georgetown University’s Center for Infectious Disease, said sensationalized media coverage and overheated rhetoric from politicians are doing more to fuel public panic than any fictional portrayal.

“[Scientists] really hope politicians act based on reality, not on movie scripts,” he said.

Still, some scholars say the cultural portrayals of disease can reinforce incorrect notions of how outbreaks occur and make people more anxiety-prone, when they see reports about the spread of a deadly disease.

The growing calls for banning travel from West Africa, for example, have a Hollywood connection — the idea that national borders can act as a bulwark against disease is a common movie trope, said Kirsten Ostherr, a professor of English at Rice University, who holds both a Ph.D. and a master’s degree in public health.

In an effort to visualize the spread of disease, Ostherr said filmmakers often use a line traveling across a map — crossing borders and moving from a virus’s point of origin to America.

“It supports the idea that national borders are actually a true boundary,” Ostherr said, even though travel restrictions are not a particularly effective way to shut down an epidemic.

She says the portrayal of the way disease travels is motivated in part by a human need to take something that is invisible but terrifying — the spread of a lethal virus — and make it concrete and comprehensible.

Filmmakers will frequently give fictional viruses gruesome symptoms, according to Ostherr, in order to connect with an audience.

“There’s a lot of iconography surrounding this type of contagion that is very scary and associated this type of disease,” Ostherr said. She noted that viruses in movies are frequently shown to cause significant bleeding — something that the real-life Ebola virus does not do — and that the image of the hazmat suit has come to be associated with uncontrollable outbreaks.

The images can have particular resonance when Americans don’t have any personal experience with a disease.

“They have a tremendous amount of influence, especially when … the disease is uncertain,” said Vish Viswanath, a professor of Health Communications at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

People are also likely to respond with fear when the images they see of a health crisis in the media match what they’ve seen in movies.

The trailer for “Outbreak” shows the pattern, with actors Dustin Hoffman and Morgan Freeman turning toward the camera is hazmat suits. At one point, a military officer shows a group of politicians a map, purported to show the potential spread of the virus over a few days. In a few seconds, the whole map turns blood red.

While “Outbreak” was in theaters some two decades ago, Ebola will be showing up again in popular entertainment soon enough.

The Hot Zone, an acclaimed nonfiction book about the virus’s lethal effects, is now being made into a TV series.